Police find four of five rare monkeys stolen from British zoo

LONDON (REUTERS) - British police have recovered four out of five monkeys, some from a critically endangered species, after launching a Europe-wide hunt for the creatures stolen from a zoo in northern England.

Thieves took the monkeys - two female and a baby Cotton-top Tamarins and two Emperor Tamarins - from their enclosures after cutting a hole in the perimeter fence of a zoo at Blackpool in northwest England on Tuesday night.

Officers said they had been making inquiries across Europe as there was "definitely a market for the monkeys".

The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the Cotton-top Tamarins as a critically endangered species with a worldwide population estimated at about 6,000.